The world's largest manufacturer of rubber bands is making its
main product immortal.

Alliance Rubber Co., a 94-year-old company based out of Hot
Springs, Arkansas, has announced a new partnership with British
researchers to infuse graphene into its rubber bands.

The rubber bands could transform how food travels through supply
chains, simplify the shipment of fragile electronics, and most
satisfyingly, last forever.

Graphene's signature property is its super-strength. More than
200 times tougher than steel, it is the strongest
substance known to humans. Somewhat famously, in 2008,
Columbia University engineer James Hone said it would take an
elephant
standing on a pencil to pierce through a sheet of graphene as
thick as Saran Wrap.

Jason Risner, director of business strategy at Alliance, said the
company is spending the next year working with University of
Sussex researchers to determine the perfect ratio of graphene to
rubber. Too little graphene, and the bands won't be maximally
durable. Too much, and they'll lose their elasticity.

The graphene-infused rubber band could be used in a
variety of contexts, from office work to
agribusiness.Alliance Rubber
Co.

Once Alliance figures out the recipe for perfect, unbreakable
rubber bands, Risner said the company can begin selling to
numerous industries, including retailers like Staples and Office
Depot, along with wholesalers working in agribusiness and
technology.

Graphene stands to fill in many of the gaps of traditional rubber
bands, Risner said. For example, graphene bands can be
anti-static, which is critical for companies shipping bundles of
electronic goods.

"Nobody who's in the electronics industry wants anything coming
near their motherboards and their circuit boards that has the
ability to build up static charge," he told Business Insider. "An
anti-static band could be used in all of those settings around
electronics and not be a danger to ruining the equipment."

Graphene-infused bands could also be embedded with RFID tags and
change color depending on temperature or time. Risner said this
holds enormous potential for farmers and grocers looking to track
their produce as it makes it way to stores for purchase — down to
the exact location a single green onion was picked.

"Imagine a rubber band that changes colors if it reaches above 95
degrees Fahrenheit," Risner said. Given that stores must adhere
to certain standards for the produce they intake, "the grocery
store would know that that produce went above the temperature
that was promised to be deliver in, and that it's going to spoil
faster. They could reject it at the store because it's changed
color based on temperature."

Customers, too, would benefit once the food makes it to shelves.
If a bundle of asparagus normally comes with a blue rubber band
but one bunch's is black, for instance, people would know which
produce to avoid.

For the millions of people who use rubber bands on a daily basis
in home or office settings, however, durability may stand out as
the greatest win, Risner said.

Eventually, Alliance wants to put graphene in every rubber band
it produces. According to Risner, turning an ordinary piece of
rubber into a traceable device — one that won't snap on a
moment's notice — would mark the next great leap forward.

Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly
stated Alliance Rubber Co. was based in Alliance, Ohio. It is
based in Hot Springs, Arkansas.